Sins of the Father
by Mango Marbles
Summary: It was Sam that the Yellow Eyed Demon possessed, an event that sends them on a different path. An AU beginning at the end of Season 1.
1. A Father's Loss

His hands don't shake, not even when they hold The Colt, cocked and pressed against the dead center of his younger son's forehead. They're all breathing heavily, but especially Sam as he holds Azazel at bay and keeps his fragile grip on his control of his body. His teeth are clenched and John sees the strain his body is put through as Sam proves his own strength of will.

Dean pleads, lying on the wooden floorboards nearby and on the verge of bleeding out (he's lucky Sam took control back when he did), but he pleads nonetheless. He begs John to stop. He begs him not to do it, but this isn't an opportunity he can pass up. It's what he's worked towards for years. It's what Sam has wanted since he left Stanford in the middle of the night with his brother behind the wheel of the Impala.

Revenge in the form of Azazel's death.

It's so much more difficult than he imagined with hazel eyes staring up at him instead of yellow ones. The hazel eyes of a boy he didn't raise, but is still his son. The eyes that looked at John full of hate and anger more times than he could count. Tears from those eyes stream down Sam's cheeks. For himself? For Jess? For Mary? For everyone? For no one? John doesn't know. He doesn't ask.

A man's last thoughts are his own.

"I'm sorry," John says. "I never wanted it to be like this."

Sam lets out a choked laugh. "I know. It's okay."

"I'm proud of you. I always have been."

It's the truth, and he should have said it sooner, but he's glad that he's gotten one chance to tell Sam, even if he's never shown it over the years.

In any other situation, he would've expected a snide comment from Sam. He would've expected biting words that drove in the fact that his words were far too little, far too late.

But Sam doesn't say anything at all. He nods, cracks a half-smile, and closes his eyes.

John takes that as his cue, and he pulls the trigger.

He hears only silence as first, watching as Sam's body jolts and flails like he's having a seizure while streaks of light course through him just beneath his skin. He always thought people were exaggerating when they described an event as happening in slow motion, but he understands what they meant now.

It's when Sam stops moving and lies still that sound returns to John. Dean is crying and making inhuman sounds as he tries to drag himself closer to Sam's body with a body that's been torn apart by the mere thoughts of a demon. Wind rattles the tree branches so they knock against the window.

But the most prominent sound is the silence he hears when he leans over to press his ear against Sam's chest to listen for a heartbeat.

There isn't one.

He doesn't let himself grieve right away. He hauls Dean to his feet and into the passenger side of the Impala. Dean isn't the type to be this pliable, especially with his brother's corpse on the other side of the cabin's walls, but he's lost enough blood that he's teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, and John wonders how much of this night he'll remember once he's been professionally patched up by doctors.

Not much, he hopes.

He hauls Sam's body into the Impala next, trying not to think about how quickly his skin is cooling as he settles him across the backseat. He tries not to think about how the next step is to build a pyre and set his son's body aflame upon it, as if he might sit up and declare that he's fine.

But he'll never so much as open his eyes again.

Driving down roads at illegal speeds with one son bleeding out beside him and the other one dead in the backseat, it's tough not to think about how he's lost far too much in his quest for vengeance, but there's no fixing this. It's better this way. The demons won't be able to use Sam or corrupt him. He's successfully thrown a wrench into their plans.

He just wishes that it didn't take a bullet between the eyes to do it.

* * *

It takes a lot of stitches to put Dean back together, but the doctors are pleased with his recovery so far. They call it an animal attack and refer to the tears in Dean's flesh as being from the claws of the large animal they encountered in the woods.

John doesn't correct them. He barely registers their words.

He lingers outside of Dean's room. He's been asleep most of the time, but between the blood loss and emotional trauma, he needs the rest. And John needs the time to figure out what he's going to say, if Dean will listen to any of his words.

If Sam had taken control of his body back any later, the cuts would have killed Dean. They're lucky. They could have been deeper. Longer. Worse.

But Sam saved him.

And John gave him a bullet between the eyes.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. It's been awhile since he's been able to sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees Sam on the floor of the cabin staring into nothing as blood oozed from his forehead to streak his face.

He wants to give Dean the choice to be there when he burns Sam, but he has to take care of it soon. There's no good place to keep the body, and he can't let it sit too long before someone figures out that there's something wrong. The problem is Dean isn't in any condition to leave for that.

He could do it alone and buy a headstone. Is there much difference between saying goodbye to a fire or a rock? Neither option will bring him back.

Again, he tells himself it's better this way. The demon wanted Sam, and Sam was his downfall. John almost smiles. Sam's stubbornness drove him mad more times than he could count, but damn if it wasn't the very thing that saved them in the end.

He never praised him until the end. There's so much he never said.

He checks Dean's room one more time to see if he's still sleeping, and he is.

John leaves the hospital alone and drives out into an empty field. Dean will be upset about this later (he's upset with John for a lot of reasons, what's one more?), but he has to do this alone. He has to have one chance to tell Sam all the things he never said while he was alive.

He needs this last moment with his son.

* * *

He'd built pyres before, but none of the others felt like he was stabbing each piece of wood into his heart rather than stacking it carefully.

None of the others were for his child.

Doubts have begun filling his mind. Was he right to shoot Sam in order to kill the demon he'd been hunting for over two decades? Was it worth the price?

Sam had encouraged him to go through with pulling the trigger. He'd lost the love of his life to the demon as well, and it was vengeance that set him back on the hunting path he tried so hard to stray from.

John shakes his head. For as much as Sam took after Mary, he took after John more. In the worst ways.

When Sam's body is carefully wrapped in white cloth with shaking hands, John finds it easier to place him on the pyre. He can pretend it's someone else, but that doesn't take away the truth. It doesn't change a thing.

How is he supposed to face Dean? All he knows is that he has to find a way to help him move forward. Not on, just forward. He needs to keep Dean from trying to bring Sam back, or that it's even an option. The cost is always too high for the reward (if you could call it that).

He tosses his lighter into the pyre before he loses his determination, and the flames devour the gasoline coated wood with a ravenous greed. They're beautiful in their destruction, and John's vengeance ends the same way it began: a loved one bathed in fire.

He watches the fire burn until it dies down and all that's left is ashes and uncertainty.

Who knew that emptiness could be so heavy?

* * *

"What are _you_ doing here?"

Dean isn't happy to see him.

John expected as much, but Dean is all he has left and he has to find a way to rebuild the bridge between them, no matter how tenuous it may be for the foreseeable future. He doesn't look forward to telling him that he's already burned Sam's body, that he's taken that closure away from Dean for his own selfish need.

"I came to check how you're doing."

"What does it matter how I'm doing?" Dean asks. "How can anything matter after you... You spent my whole life telling me to watch out for Sammy, to take care of him, and then you go and…"

"It's what he wanted. You heard him ask me to do it."

Dean scoffs and rolls his eyes. "When have you ever cared about what he wanted?"

John ignores the pain those words bring. He was never going to win a Father of the Year Award, but it hurts to think about how bad he was that Dean would ask him when he ever cared about what they wanted.

"We had the same goal. He is—_was—_damn strong to take control back from the demon. He did it for you. For me. For Mary. For his girlfriend. He had a lot to live for, but he had a lot to die for, too."

"The one time you praise him is when he's staring into the barrel of your gun," Dean says, never before sounding so cold towards John. "You have no idea how much you hurt him when we were growing up. All he ever wanted was to hear you say you were proud of him. Not fucking once did you do it. Not until it was too late to matter."

"I know," John says. "I _know _how many times I've failed. But I had suspicions about the future—his future. There's a lot that I never told you boys, but it's time for you to know. Once you're out of the hospital, I'll show you what I've found over the years. I'll show you why Sam's future scared me more than any monster we've faced."

Dean looks torn. Angry and confused and upset and so much else. "Why now?"

"Because the demon, and other demons, had plans for Sam. They can't get him now. They can't have him, not when he's safe with Mary and at peace. But this really isn't the place to go into depth on topics like that. Like I said, I'll show you everything once you're out of here."

It's the one way that he has a chance of getting Dean to stay with him.

"That doesn't mean I'll forgive you."

"I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm just asking you to stay. You're all I have left now."

"Yeah, well, that's your own fault."

John folds his hands, trying to keep himself calm despite the frustration and anger that Dean is causing him. His loss is not the only one. John lost Sam, too. He can't ask Dean to forgive him, not when he can't forgive himself. But he knows that it's better this way, and soon Dean will see that, too.

Sam, if he lived, would face pain that John wouldn't wish upon anyone.

"I don't want to argue with you. I know what I've done, and I see his face staring back at me every time I close my eyes."

"What do you want me to do? What is there to do? We did what we've always wanted. We're done, so now what?"

John wonders about those answers himself, but he tells Dean the only reasons he's come up with so far. "We keep going because there are still things out there. There are still plans being made, and most people aren't prepared to deal with the things we hunt. We'll do it in Sam's memory. Make the world a better place, a place he would've liked."

Dean shakes his head. The light in his eyes that had been so familiar is gone, replaced by a steely chill. "No. We won't do it in Sam's memory. We won't pretend that this is for him or for anyone else. It's because we've always done it. Because there's nothing else worth doing. Nothing changes the fact that... "

Dean doesn't finish his thought, but he doesn't need to. John understands.

Nothing changes the fact that Sam's gone.

* * *

**A/N: **I think you all know by now that I have issues ignoring plot bunnies.


	2. A Son's Pain

One shot.

One second. Less, even.

That's all it takes to change everything. The life he'd known is forever gone in a way too permanent for his liking.

The most painful fact is that Sam's passing will go largely unnoticed in the world. That's a hunter's fate, but Sam never wanted to be a hunter. He deserves to be remembered. To be mourned.

The doctors tell him to take it easy. Limit his physical activity while the stitches are in to avoid tearing them. That he'll hurt for a bit and be sore longer than that. But he doesn't feel anything more than a suffocating numbness. How can he?

The only pain that makes itself known is the pain that comes from the fact that his brother is dead. Not just dead, no, he was killed by their own father. The same father who disconnected them from both the normal world and other hunters to the point that Dean's certain there will be no hunters' gathering in Sam's honor, nor will there be a traditional funeral. There's no one who knows either of them enough to reminisce about them amongst a crowd of friends and family that they don't have.

It will be like he was never there, and Dean sluggishly brings one hand up to wrap around the bronze charm of the amulet he never takes off to remind himself that those moments with Sam were real. He keeps his grip tight to the point that the edges of the charm dig into his skin, but he doesn't feel the pain. Sam was there, once. He was alive.

A nurse comes into the room with a wheelchair. She has a kind smile and the weary appearance that comes with years of dealing with people who are at their worst points in life. She must know that Dean is at his lowest point, too. Only he won't be able to climb up from this one, he's one of her lost causes. His body might heal, but it's the invisible wounds causing him the most pain. Wounds that won't heal any time soon.

"Lucky day for you," she says, her voice holding a slight sing-song quality. "Time to go home."

Dean bites his tongue to hold back the scathing remarks begging to escape his mouth. He isn't going home, he hasn't had a home since he was four years old. And he's not lucky. Lucky would be having Sam at his side and ready to help him out of the hospital, calling him an old man for needing a wheelchair. Lucky wouldn't be facing a life without the one person who gave his life meaning. Purpose.

"Your dad is bringing his car around so you won't have to go too far. And this wheelchair means you'll only need to take a handful of steps, if that. It'll be nice and easy. And you'll just need to remember to continue resting for awhile yet, don't push yourself. Being out of the hospital doesn't mean you're back to normal quite yet."

She says it all like it's reassuring—standard procedure that she's repeated a hundred times—but Dean doesn't have it in him to care. Take him to his father. Whatever. He has nowhere else to go. No home, just motel rooms with a man he used to idolize.

Sam warned him. He saw the madness hidden under their father's drive before he was even old enough to understand it, and he tried to get Dean to see it, too. Sam told him to think for himself instead of blindly siding with their dad out of misplaced feelings of duty and responsibility. Out of an avenging quest for a mother he had only inky, faded memories of. How many times did Dean hurt Sam by supporting their dad in an argument instead of him? How many times did Sam look at him with betrayal burning in his eyes before turning and storming out of their motel room for hours?

He doesn't want to think about it because he knows he won't like the answer he finds.

The nurse is looking at him, expecting a response. Most people are happy at this point, getting to leave the hospital with their bill of health being labeled good enough.

Dean nods. He has nothing to say. Nothing to be happy about.

The nurse's plastic smile falls a bit, but she props it back up proper and helps Dean into the chair with a practiced kindness and well coordinated motions. A bag full of medication and wound dressings is placed in his lap with the cautionary advice to follow the instructions he's been given.

She tries to make small talk as she wheels Dean through hospital hallways and down to the exit where his dad is waiting with the Impala, but he ignores her for the most part. He doesn't want to see his dad right now, but he doesn't have anywhere else to go or any other ride out of this place.

He always thought he'd kill anyone who hurt Sam, yet here he is about to ride quietly back to a dirty motel room with Sammy's murderer. How was he supposed to know how fucked up the situation would be when he made those promises to himself?

He bites back his protests as John helps him into the Impala, one pillow carefully placed behind his back and another set up to pad his side from the car door. How can he put on the show of caring when his son's dead? How can he act like nothing happened? Like he didn't fire a bullet between Sam's eyes a matter of days ago?

John thanks the nurse for her help, and a minute later they're on the road. A familiar and foreign feeling all at once.

Familiar in that he was raised on the road.

Foreign in that he's not sure what the point of freedom on the road is without Sam. He can't pretend that Sam is back at Stanford and nothing is wrong. His mind won't let him.

Dean watches the terrain pass outside the passenger side window, uninterested in John's half-hearted attempts to ask how he is or if he's ready to finally be out of the hospital. How are his stitches holding up? Is he in pain? He can't really want to know those details of well-being after he killed his other son. If it had been Dean possessed by Yellow Eyes, would he have still shot The Colt so easily?

Dean isn't sure he wants to know that answer. He isn't sure of much anymore.

All he knows is that Sam is gone, and the world shouldn't be turning without him in it.

Yet everything continues to move forward as if Sam's absence means nothing.

* * *

John sets him up on the bed farther from the door, and Dean has no choice but to accept his father's help. Even then, and with the slow pace of their movements, he feels the stitches keeping him together threatening to tear apart.

When it's over, he's winded, and he hates it. He hates how feeble his body's become with one injury. One severe injury that led to what should have been his death, but instead led to Sam's murder.

If he hadn't been strong enough to regain control from the demon…

If he had begged for life rather than vengeance…

The thoughts threaten to consume him, and the dreadful feeling that comes with being on the bed that should be—but never again will be—Sam's doesn't help. Being unable to do much with his recovering body doesn't help. It gives him too much time to dwell on unpleasant thoughts and realities.

"Want anything to eat? Or some water?"

"No," Dean says.

He hates the way that John is hovering around him, like he's concerned. He wasn't concerned when it came to killing Sam. And how could he act like that never happened? Like Sam simply never existed?

He doesn't want to look at his father. He doesn't want to share a motel room with his father. He doesn't want anything to do with his father anymore.

But Dean's used to not getting what he wants.

A look crosses John's face that Dean can't quite read, but he's grateful for the silence that follows it.

John hauls their weapons bag in and starts cleaning them on the opposite bed in the same methodical manner he always has when handling the assortment of guns and knives they've collected.

Dean turns his head away and pretends to be asleep, settling himself into the thin, stiff bedding and the pillows with their indents in the least comfortable places. If the Colt is among those weapons, he doesn't want to know.

But rest refuses to come and he listens to guns being carefully taken apart, cleaned, and put back together again. He knows the sound each and every gun in that bag makes, and he knows the hunts they've been a part of, failure or success.

This last hunt, he decides, was a failure. Though it hurts that his father and Sam would disagree. Would they even see it as a Pyrrhic victory, or would they chalk it up as a blatant win and forget about the sacrifices needed?

At the edges of his mind, there's a question lurking. One which he doesn't want to think about, but he can't prevent it from bursting to the front of his thoughts.

If Sam had begged for life, would John have still pulled the trigger?


	3. A Destination

The sun's arrival in the morning is an unwelcome reminder that he's alive to face another day. His heart continues to beat within his chest and force life through his body, but everything that used to make his life worthwhile gone. A new day starts despite the nightmare the last few weeks have been, and he can't seem to wake up from the terrors that have consumed his life, finding them more frightening than any inhumane creature he's faced in the past. A life without Sam.

It takes him a moment to remember that he's in a motel now, not trapped in the hospital with staff members' fake enthusiasm and unnecessary restrictions. No nurses nagging at him to stay put, damn it, or he's gonna reopen his stitches. Instead, he's trapped with his father. He never thought that he'd see that as a bad thing, but he never thought he'd see Sam die either. _Killed._

He feels no reason to drag himself out of bed or to even sit up. Yes, he's injured. But it's not the injuries that leave him lying in limbo, mulling over the worth of expending the effort it would take to try to do more than exist. It's the emptiness.

How is it that an absence is able to weigh so heavily upon him?

He's always been the one with a zest for life. A carefree attitude and happily nomadic lifestyle. Hunting meant moving, and moving meant it was useless to build connections. Have a few flings. Find a few drinking buddies. Waste a few monsters. Then, move on and never look back. But that hasn't been enough to save him from heartache.

Sam was a constant in the middle of motion. A connection that Dean believed couldn't be broken, and then it was. A bullet from their father's gun severed that connection, and Dean is only now realizing how deep it'd dug into him over the years.

Without Sam, Dean doesn't exist. He has no reason to. His best friend and beloved brother is gone forever. It isn't like when he left for Stanford, and there isn't anything that Dean wouldn't give to make it so that Sam was left to complete his studies at Stanford the way he planned instead of being dragged into a string of hunts that ultimately led to his death. At least at Stanford, Dean would know he was alive and well.

But thoughts and wishes can't change reality, no matter how much willpower he puts behind them.

Dean stares at the ceiling of the motel room, willing away thoughts that are forever burned into his mind. He tries to focus on the stains, scratches, and marks on the wall. Some of them elicit a flitting question as to how they got there, but then the question leaves his head. There's no curiosity to pursue it or spark of imagination weaving incredible—and ridiculous—stories about those marks to distract his little brother from the very real possibility that Dad might not come home from his hunt. That he's never guaranteed to make it back.

Maybe it would have been better that he hadn't come back from one of those hunts.

Once his wounds have healed and the pain is gone, he'll have to force himself to keep moving if he doesn't want his father recognizing the shift in feelings that Dean has towards him, and that fact is a strange one that lingers in his mind. He hasn't processed those events that he hates to acknowledge, but he knows that he doesn't want to talk with Dad about it. He doesn't want to talk to his dad about any topic. Not when he acts like nothing's wrong.

Like he didn't look his son in the eyes and kill him.

He can choose to go his separate way, but where would he go? Where _could_ he go? He isn't fit for any other life, and he isn't sure that he could try a different job when he knows the truth about all the crazy shit that's out there. He wouldn't be able to forgive himself every time he came across a story in one of the newspapers that had 'supernatural creature' written all over it as it retold the gruesome deaths shocking the area while he did nothing to prevent it because he was off playing at a normal life.

No, playing at a normal life would remind him of Sam too often. That was his dream, not Dean's. It isn't for Dean to take up that dream in his memory or honor or whatever. He's pretty sure that Sam wouldn't ask him to do so, either.

But only pretty sure. Those four years he spent at Stanford left Dean with gaps of information about his brother's life. It took a bit for them to find their stride working together after that distance, but they were just starting to be brothers again.

They were just starting to be brothers again…

The door to the motel room creaks open, sliding over the thin, mildew-coated carpet.

John appears on the other side, his left hand wrapped around the doorknob while his right holds a drink carrier with two paper coffee cups set diagonally across from each other and a nondescript brown bag settled between them.

"Dean, how are you feeling?" he asks, shutting the door and coming over to set the drink carrier on the nightstand beside Dean's bed.

His dad takes a seat on the edge of the other bed. There's some distance between them, but it isn't enough. Dean isn't sure that any distance between them can be enough.

"I'm sore," Dean says. How else is he supposed to be feeling after almost being mauled to death by a supernatural force? And it's not like his dad cares about his non-physical feelings. If he had, then Sam would still be there.

John nods like that was the expected answer. "Well, do you think you could manage being on the road?"

"Where are we going?"

"Blue Earth," John says. "Some hunters are holding a funeral for Pastor Jim."

Pastor Jim. In the rush of chasing the demon, and then in the following loss of Sam, Dean forgot that there was more than one casualty in the events leading up to and including the death of the demon. He stomach knots with a twist of guilt in the realization that he was so focused on one loss, he never thought of paying respects to Pastor Jim and Caleb, who had been like family when they were younger. They were there to help out him and Sam when they were kids and couldn't trust their father to be there for them.

_The sun won't rise for awhile, yet Dean is wide awake as his dad hauls Sam into Pastor Jim's modest home. He follows behind, uncertain. He hasn't been given directions beyond 'get in the car' and that was given back at the motel room in Fort Douglas._

_John hasn't said a word to him since then._

_He's ushered into the house with Sam, who's rather upset at being woken up for the second time. Without being asked, Dean takes Sam upstairs to the bedroom they share at Jim's place. He feels Sam's small hand in his, and he holds on a little tighter._

_He messed up._

_He messed up, and Sam was the one who almost paid for it. Dean can't be sure how close to death Sam was, but he knows that it was closer than it ever should have been. And he doesn't even know. Sam has no idea what happened. He has no idea that he was in real danger. What Dean wouldn't give to keep him in this ignorance, but he knows that Sam is growing up and becoming more curious with each day that passes._

_Sam falls back to sleep without hesitation, curling up under the blankets like he's always slept in that comfortable and clean bed, leaving Dean wide awake and sitting on the opposite bed. Staring. He may have been getting tired when he returned back to the motel, but ever since he saw that monster hovering over Sam, sleep has been the last thing on his mind._

_Jim cracks the bedroom door open, letting the light from the hall spill over Sam's bed, but the kid doesn't stir. He steps in and moves closer to Dean. _

"_I imagine you won't be sleeping tonight," he says, his voice no more than a whisper._

_Dean shakes his head._

"_Why don't you join me in the living room, then? I'm researching for some local hunters—you know Caleb—and I wouldn't mind the company. Keeping yourself busy with something else could help."_

"_I'll stay here," Dean says. He's messed up once, he won't dare to mess up again so soon._

_Jim sighs, though Dean doesn't hear frustration in it. He probably knew what Dean would say before he asked, but he tried anyway._

_Dean might have appreciated it on another day, but not today._

"_Well, I can at least get you a cup of tea," Jim says._

"_I don't really drink tea."_

"_You should start." Jim stands up and gives Dean a look over his shoulder before he leaves the room. "It's good for you, and it soothes the nerves."_

"_I'd rather have a cup of coffee," Dean whispers once Jim has left and closed the door behind him. He doesn't want to be soothed, he wants to be alert._

_But what he wants doesn't matter. He should've known that before he left Sam alone in that motel room._

"You don't like hunter gatherings," Dean points out. He isn't sure what else to say, not that he wants to say much at all.

"There are a lot of things I don't like," John says. "Sometimes, you just have to put up with them anyway."

Dean takes a coffee cup from the drink carrier and raises it to his lips, allowing himself a long drink both for quenching his thirst (and yeah, maybe coffee wasn't the _best_ at doing that) and giving himself time to avoid responding.

Was he trying to say that Dean has to put up with Sam's _murder_ even if he doesn't like it because of some greater good bullshit?

Sam was the one who always wanted answers and explanations. The one who wanted to analyze their father and his faults and behaviors. That isn't who Dean is.

But he's afraid that he might have to pick up those traits of Sam's to find a truth that he isn't sure he can handle.


End file.
